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The hard part of this job

I work in a spa...Ive been a massage therapist for almost 30 years.. I have good days and bad days of course... I had only three clients today...an hour and a half each... Two of them held me in reverence..Up on a pedestal...Like Im some sort of god or guru healer or something....They tipped me ridiculously huge amounts of money... But the last person I worked on told the front desk that his massage was a rip off...he did pay the full amount,but gave me no tip, and left the spa angry... I left work depressed today...This is a hard job on a lot of levels...If I was totally together as a human being...That kind of thing shouldn't bother me. But it does. ....I give my best to everybody....For me, this is the hard part about being a massage therapist...I want everyone to be happy with my work....I didnt see him leave angry, I was just told about it...If they wouldn't have told me... Id be happy now......For me... With all my experience...This is what makes my job hard...I cant please everyone.. I want to though... Just wanted to let you new people know...Its challenging work.. No matter how good you think you are..No matter how much experience.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Bronk on August 21, 2012 at 2:51pm

"should" being the operative word there. sorry, it's not all perfect. we've been misled to believe pressure gonna melt spasm like a knife thru butter. why? because so often you can get away with it. but as noted, at times it will make people worse. here's a case in point . . .

I left a student to care for a difficult case while out of town. We’d been working together on her, making consistent progress after she’d been laid up seven weeks straight sleeping on the living room floor, life stopped in its tracks; unable to stand, sit or walk, radiating pain and tingling down the leg, her foot numb for days at a time. We were making consistent progress and I encouraged her to continue with my student while away.

Because he was just out of massage school, he didn’t yet realize the limitations of what he’d been taught. Instead of continuing as I’d shown, he had to try out some of what he’d learned at school. He thought he was being very gentle, and even she said he was very caring and in constant communication to make sure she was “relaxed”, but she had difficulty getting off the table after the treatment, and spiraled down from there as though she were back to square one. When I called to check on her, she was in tears and inconsolable. (What had he done? Just some gentle acupressure.)

Resuming with proper treatment, it took a total of one month to get her sitting and driving again, and another month to get her back to work, doing hour-and-a-half sessions once or twice a week. Two doctors had told her she needed surgery for a disc.

Press too heavy or too long on a muscle, and it tenses to resist. You may be able to “breath,” and think you’re relaxed, but what you’re actually doing is relaxing every other part of your body – you can’t help but tense slightly directly under the pressure, it’s an autonomic reflex that is beyond your ability to control.